April 4th 1963

Today marks the 43rd year anniversary of when Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on the balcony of his Hotel Room. He was struck down by a a single .30 caliber bullet fired from a Remington 760 Gamemaster rifle. I’ve spent the better half of this morning researching Martin Luther’s life leading up to his death. I’ve come to grip on a couple different aspects of his teachings.

The first thing I’d like to point out his method of “non-violent protesting” that he acquired from the late Muhatma Ghandi. This alone gave power to African Americans all over the world and brought attention to the injustice that was occurring as a part of everyday life for millions of people.

One of his most memorable achievements he was co-creating the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Which was one of the main forces in abolishing segregation in the public.

Interesting side note: Segregation is also referred to as “Jim Crow Laws” in reference to a song from the early 1900’s which was a satire of the black community (You know, the white people with black make-up hopping and dancing around like jackasses).

The Montgomery Bus Boycotts lasted 385 days and involved an incident with a 15 year pregnant black girl having to give up here seat to a white man and the more well-known incident with Rosa Parks. The boycott got so intense at one point someone had actually blown up a part of Martin Luther King’s home with a small bomb.

King’s legacy also continues on today with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The SCLC is one of the leaders for African American Civil Rights in the world. The SCLC main focus is on equal rights such as voting privileges, equal pay regardless of skin colour and also providing funding to black churches across the US. Basically it’s like that part in Forest Gump when Tom Hanks picks up the book for the black girl who was able to finally attend school with all the white folks, the SCLC did that….allowing the girl to go to school, not the Forest Gump movie. That was Steven Spielberg.

Aside from brushing up on my Black History I spent some time to listen to the legendary “I have a Dream” speech. It always manages to give me goose bumps when I hear this man speak of a perfect world where teachers, employers and even the general public are all colourblind and where everyone gets equal treatment. Take a second today to think of Martin Luther King Jr. and apply his teachings to your life. Believe that one day soon, a black man will become president….and be re-elected in 2012.

“All I’m saying is simply this, that all life is interrelated, that somehow we’re caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.”

-Dr.Martin Luther King Jr.

Advertisements

Like this:

LikeLoading...

Related

About cameronchase420

Hey I'm Cameron and I hate Ketchup, obviously. I also like to talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, and rap. I'm from Calgary but lived in Ontario for the most of my life. I now live in a little town called Wingham, oh you haven't heard of Wingham? Strange. Aaaaanyways, enough about me. Go read my shit.
View all posts by cameronchase420

This entry was posted on Monday, April 4th, 2011 at 3:04 pm and posted in Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.